2 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Is-Ought Problem responses
Unless we have a clear criteria for "biological unity" that is unimpeachable, we haven't actually solved OP's problem. We're just restating the problem using more sciency jargon.
I agree that the problem has hardly been cleared out once and for all. But I'd hardly say it's exactly the same problem if you accept the solution I'm advancing here. We've gone from a problem in aesthetics to a problem in how physical systems (organisms) are organized. The people I cited in my first post here and others have done a great deal of work on what it means to be 'unified' as an organism, if you're curious to read more. Just as you say, opinions differ. But that's not a sign of making no progress, or of ending up with exactly the same problem. When Einstein worked out that gravity was the curvature of space-time, did people throw up their hands and say 'well now we have to explain that! Nothing has been learned!' Ok, some people probably did say that - but those people were silly.
Comment by Quidfacis_ at 25/07/2016 at 11:36 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
We've gone from a problem in aesthetics to a problem in how physical systems (organisms) are organized. The people I cited in my first post here and others have done a great deal of work on what it means to be 'unified' as an organism
Selecting 'organization' is itself a choice of aesthetic preference. Why prefer organization to other qualities? And what counts as organization? Throughout the paper the authors report the results of choices they made. When we ask why they chose X rather than Y, the answer will ultimately be one of aesthetic preference.
For example, here is a weird quote from page 115.
Now, it is clearly possible on this basis to extend this well-grounded notion of biological individuality beyond cellular life to a fully constituted multi-cellular organism. **A multicellular organism (and this includes all vertebrates usually taken as prototypical organisms) is not in itself an autopoietic unit of second order**, since its organization does not follow the same self-con(s)tructing (sic) principles. However, a multicellular organism inherits its autonomous nature and sense-making qualities through the configuration of its neural identity.
This seems to be an instance of the authors *choosing* to allow vertebrates to participate in their 'autopoietic unit' malarkey. They choose this because
Choosing to allow that inheritance to serve as a connection is itself an aesthetic preference. They could have stopped at vertebrates not being "autopoietic units of second order". But instead, they chose to include them because (aesthetic preferences).
The reason given for why they allowed vertebrates to count is a version of the question OP asked. So, no, we haven't "gone from a problem in aesthetics to a problem in how physical systems (organisms) are organized". We took the problem, did the thing we find problematic, and then rushed off into science without recognizing that we reached science land by means of the problem we're trying to solve.
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Also, unrelated to the above, I have a question about a quote from page 112.
By this central aspect of its functioning “metabolism can very well be considered as the defining quality of life: every living being has it, no nonliving being has it”.
Metabolism seems to be defined as "the chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life". Saying that metabolism is the defining quality because "every living being has it", when metabolism is "chemical processes in living organisms to maintain life" seems viciously circular. I mean, look at them next to each other.
Those are pretty damn redundant. Am I missing something? Or is this just another example of scientists trying to do philosophy, and failing miserably?